Baofeng UV5R+ Power Troubles

[katsu]

I recently got a UV5R+ to replace my 888s. It's a decent radio and a step up from the 888s, but it's recently been abruptly powering off. I'll look at it and the screen is blank. Turn the switch to off, then back to on and it will turn back on and go about as normal. It doesn't seem like the battery is electrically low or physically loose, because it will happen randomly throughout a day of use, but still report a high charge and also work fine in between random power-offs.

Is this a software or hardware problem? Defective machine or improper usage by me?

Any insight would be appreciated.

 

[FKimble]

Do you have APO (auto power off) on that radio? If so it may be set for something like 1 hour.

 

[KC9HI]

I recently got a UV5R+ to replace my 888s. It's a decent radio and a step up from the 888s, but it's recently been abruptly powering off. I'll look at it and the screen is blank. Turn the switch to off, then back to on and it will turn back on and go about as normal. It doesn't seem like the battery is electrically low or physically loose, because it will happen randomly throughout a day of use, but still report a high charge and also work fine in between random power-offs.

Is this a software or hardware problem? Defective machine or improper usage by me?

Any insight would be appreciated.

This is something like the 3 radio in the last 30 days that has had an issue similar to this. On fellow hooked the radio up to a variable power supply to see what varying the voltage would do.

The radio would run from about 3.5 volt to 6 volts but then shut off above 6 volts. I don't remember which forum this was in (probably the Yahoo! baofeng_uv5r group) but one of the members said that after looking at the schematic, he suspected that the 3.3 volt regulator is out of it.

But on the chance that it may be corrupt memory, you could download the "factory" CHIRP .img file that matches your radio's firmware version and upload it to your radio using CHIRP to see if that makes a difference.

UV5R F8HP Recovery Baofeng Pofung UV5R

Jim KC9HI

 

[KD8DVR]

Do you have APO (auto power off) on that radio? If so it may be set for something like 1 hour.

Baofengs do not have that option.

 

[katsu]

Thank you for the suggestions, I've been trying out options but don't get too much time to test things, hence the delay. I first returned the original just in case as it was still within 30 days. The new one started having issues as well, and I followed the steps linked here. I am still having the problem on two separate UV5Rs!

I have been trying to figure out a correlation, and the only thing I notice is that it only seems to start switching off when it gets to two bars of battery life. I am guessing the voltage must be dropping under 3.3 when it gets low, and it starts to become more intermittent. The battery alert doesn't come up, but it may be having issues at half battery?

 

[KC9HI]

Thank you for the suggestions, I've been trying out options but don't get too much time to test things, hence the delay. I first returned the original just in case as it was still within 30 days. The new one started having issues as well, and I followed the steps linked here. I am still having the problem on two separate UV5Rs!

I have been trying to figure out a correlation, and the only thing I notice is that it only seems to start switching off when it gets to two bars of battery life. I am guessing the voltage must be dropping under 3.3 when it gets low, and it starts to become more intermittent. The battery alert doesn't come up, but it may be having issues at half battery?

Are you getting the battery fully charged? Do not leave the radio on while it is charging. Leaving it on interferes with the charger being able to detect the charging progress.

Also, a li-ion battery keeps a fairly constant voltage during use and then drops off rapidly at the end of the discharge cycle. This makes it hard for the radio to give warning when the battery is nearly spent.

Disregard the battery care instructions of the manual. It looks like it was stolen from a manual for a device that contained a ni-mh battery pack. The UV-5R batteries have li-ion cells in then. You can drop them in the charger and top them off whenever it is convenient. There is no need to run them all the way down before charging them up. Doing so is actually bad for them.

You may want to look at the Battery University lesson for Charging Lithium-Ion Batteries.

Jim KC9HI

 

[aballworth]

Same problem

I purchased a new unit and used for a week no problems. I bought a cable and programmed it fine and it worked fine for 30 min then I attached my outdoor antenna to it and started dying when I try to transmit. Hooked old antenna up and it still dies when I try to transmit. The battery is full. Anyone else have this problem? Would hooking outdoor antenna up do anything to it?

 

[jk77]

You wouldn't happen to know the SWR of that outdoor antenna? Too high of an SWR could damage your radio or any radio for that matter.

 

[aballworth]

no I do not.. That is what I was wondering if it was too high? Does the radio have some sort of overload protection for this? I charged the radio for a few hours and it seems to be working fine now. The battery indicator showed 2 bars when I was having problems with it turning off. Wondering if maybe the indicator was off and the battery was just too low. Anyone else have problems like this?